Four candidates are challenging incumbent Eleanor Holmes Norton in the Nov. 6 midterm election as she seeks to continue her decades-long tenure as DC delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. Early voting began Monday at One Judiciary Square and expanded today to 13 other locations across the city.
Norton — a lifelong Democrat in a city where 76 percent of the voters belong to the Democratic Party — has served as delegate since 1991 with faced few serious challengers after her initial run, taking more than 80 percent of the vote in each general election. This fall is shaping up to be no different: Norton’s campaign has said publicly that it’s not worried about securing a win next month. Norton’s challengers, however, have been holding out hope that some dissatisfied Democrats will swing their way after challenger Kim Ford, a former Obama administration official, pulled 22 percent of the vote in June’s Democratic primary.
Norton did not respond to an interview request. During the lead-up to the primary, Norton told a meeting of the Ward 4 Democrats that that, given her seniority, she would have the opportunity to chair a subcommittee or full committee if the Democrats regain control of the House.
“I have never been able to chair because for most of my time I have been in the minority,” Norton said. If that changes after the midterms, Norton pledged to focus on statehood.
“When I first came to Congress, I got us a vote on DC statehood. If we get back the House once again, I will ask for another vote,” she said to cheers and applause from the partisan crowd.
Norton’s four challengers run the ideological gamut and include one independent and the nominees from the District’s three non-majority parties. All but one support DC statehood but fault Norton’s approach to the issue.
Republican nominee Nelson Rimensnyder
Ford’s vote tally in the Democratic primary indicates “that there’s widespread dissatisfaction” with Norton’s policies, said Nelson Rimensnyder, who is running for the delegate seat as a Republican. “[Norton] often didn’t have opposition in her races, and this was a young woman who had never run for office before and did very well.”
Rimensnyder spent 25 years working on Capitol Hill and said that, if elected, he would wield his experience and connections there to push a legislative agenda that centers around DC statehood and representation in Congress.
He supports statehood but believes that it can only be accomplished with a constitutional amendment, not through legislation that Norton has been trying and failing for years to get through the House.
Rimensnyder is aware of the polarizing nature of the national Republican party and emphasized that he aligns “much more with the local, District of Columbia Republican Party, which has always been much more moderate than the national party.”
Should he be elected, Rimensnyder already has a list of bills he plans to introduce in the House. The first would exempt DC residents from federal income tax until they achieve full representation in Congress. Another would establish a DC delegate to the U.S. Senate.
He also wants to increase the 13-member DC Council to 25 members, but isn’t yet certain how the city would be redivided.
“We really function as a state here in many ways, and we need more representation,” he said.
Statehood Green Party nominee Natale “Lino” Stracuzzi
Natale “Lino” Stracuzzi is challenging Norton as the Statehood Green Party nominee, as he has done in each general election since 2012. Having first sought the seat in 1998 as an independent, Stracuzzi said the repeated campaigns have led some to call him Norton’s “perennial” challenger. He ran unopposed in his party’s primary this June.
Unlike Rimensnyder, Stracuzzi has little experience on the Hill, but said he still has a lot to bring to the table.
A first-generation Italian-American, Stracuzzi worked as an automotive electrician in the District until his daughter was born. Then, he took a job as an independent sales representative in the furniture industry. He was on his way back from a trade show in North Carolina when he spoke to The DC Line.
“My [work] experience doesn’t really qualify me, but I think that the things we experience do,” he said.
Stracuzzi’s campaign is focused on labor issues, particularly surrounding Social Security and Medicare.
“It should be our decision to work until we’re 70, not the government’s,” he said. He’s adamantly opposed to the 2006 law enacted by Congress that expanded Medicare services to cover outpatient prescription drugs by creating Medicare Part D. The benefit structure has led to complaints by senior advocates about the high out-of-pocket costs for patients.
“What we did is we stuck it to seniors again, and this is inhumane,” he said, recalling the hundreds of dollars his mother has paid for medications since it was implemented. “How is that fair to the seniors, the people who have worked in this country and supported this country?”
Stracuzzi also strongly supports DC statehood.
“I look at it as a civil rights issue,” he said. “We’re the last federal city in the world where citizens have no voice.”
Libertarian nominee Bruce Majors
Bruce Majors is challenging Norton as the Libertarian candidate for the delegate seat, as he did in 2012. He also ran unopposed in the June primary. Majors, who has been loyal to the Libertarian Party since he was in college, describes it as the “fastest growing party in DC.”
He studied at the University of Chicago before putting his education on pause to move to DC in 1980 and work for Ed Clark, a Libertarian candidate for president,. He returned to school after the campaign ended and graduated in 1982 from American University.
Majors, like Rimensnyder, favors DC statehood by constitutional amendment.
“I think statehood is one way to get rid of the height limit on construction, force DC politicians to stop blaming their many failures (e.g. local schools or Metro) on Congress, and the only way that DC voters can take full control of things like criminal justice reform and whether they will become a state that legalizes commercial marijuana sales,” he wrote in an email.
While the idea of statehood enjoys strong support among DC residents, Majors said he worries that the statehood movement has grown stale under Norton. He also highlighted the importance of appealing to voters across the country.
“The movement, or parts of it, don’t seem to have been effective at making the case to U.S. voters generally,” he wrote. “Part of that may be because they too often tell people one of the things that would be great about it is to get to extra Democratic Senators, which then turns people off in a partisan way.”
Majors aligns closely with the Libertarian platform on many issues, including expanding and protecting school choice; reducing regulations that burden employers and limit business opportunities; legalizing commercial production and sale of marijuana; and reforming the criminal justice by ending mandatory sentencing.
If elected, one of the first policies Majors would pursue would be elimination of the height limit on DC buildings.
“Perhaps the Anacostia river would be cleaner if people in 40 story condos lived nearby with views of it and easy access to parks near it including kayaking,” he wrote. “And it might improve the ratio of supply to demand that leads to high DC housing prices.”
Independent John Cheeks
John Cheeks, executive director for the United States Citizens Recovery Initiative Alliance, is running as an independent for the delegate seat. He previously ran for DC Council chairmanship in 2014 and an at-large council seat in 2016.
His platform is anchored by two policy items: recovery and reparations for the descendants of American slaves, and increased efforts to combat poverty. To end poverty, he said, the nation must “end the Civil War.”
“You may say, ‘The Civil War ended 153 years ago.’ It did not end 153 years ago,” he said, elaborating on policies he would pursue with regard to issues that have become flashpoints in many states and communities in recent years. “We’re going to remove Confederate statues and statues of people who owned slaves. We’re going to rename school buildings named after those who didn’t support civil rights.” Within the District, Cheeks wants to remove the statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike located near Judiciary Square.
Unlike the other delegate candidates, Cheeks does not support DC statehood.
“I’m not for statehood because it will cost too much money,” he said. He does, however, believe that DC should have a vote in the House and the Senate and does not think obtaining a vote would require a constitutional amendment.
“We would ask the House and the Senate to give us a vote [to rectify] the injury of slaves in the District, because they built this city,” Cheeks said.
If elected, Cheeks would first propose to transfer full ownership of DC public housing units to current occupants, thereby reducing the cost for the government.
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